Ravinia 2021 - Issue 1

to women: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on ac- count of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” This brevity belies an almost century-long struggle leading to passage of the amendment by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratification as law of the land on August 18, 1920. Last year marked the centennial of this historic achievement, a time to commemorate and celebrate the legions of suffragists whose tire- less labors brought change. Evanston-based composer Stacy Garrop’s The Battle for the Ballot for chamber orchestra provides a contemporary platform where those long-ago voices resonate once more. Throughout, a female narrator declaims ar- dent words of resistance by seven suffragists, both Black (Carrie W. Clifford, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Adella Hunt Logan, and Mary Church Terrell) and white (Jane Add- ams, Susan B. Anthony, and Carrie Chapman Catt). These diverse voices serve as a reminder that passage of the 19th Amendment did not end their fight, since other laws continued to deny Black women the right to vote until Con- gress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Battle for the Ballot was commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music with generous support from JoAnn Close and Michael Good. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the premiere took place online on August 9, 2020, during the festival’s virtual season. Widely acclaimed composer Stacy Garrop re- ceived a Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts in Composition from the University of Chicago, and a Doctor of Music from Indiana University. She has held composer-in-res- idence appointments with the Albany Sym- phony (2009–10), Skaneateles Festival (2011), and Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orches- tra (2016–19), and she was the first Emerging Opera Composer of Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Program (2018–20). Garrop served on the faculty of Roosevelt University for sev- eral years (2000–16) and taught at the Fresh Stacy Garrop Inc Festival (2012–17) before devoting herself full-time to composition. Lyrical storytelling that explores the depth of human experience has remained the most distinctive feature of Garrop’s compositions. “The sharing of stories is a defining element of our humanity; we strive to share with oth- ers the experiences and concepts that we find compelling.” This quality surfaces in works such as My Dearest Ruth (2013; art song based on the last written letter by Martin Ginsburg, husband of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg), Krakatoa (2017; con- certo for viola and wind ensemble), Shiva Dances (2019; orchestral score commissioned by the Grant Park Music Festival in honor of Carlos Kalmar’s 20th anniversary as Principal Conductor), and The Transformation of Jane Doe (2019; opera commissioned by Chicago Opera Theater for the Vanguard Initiative), among other examples. CARLOS SIMON (b. 1986) Fate Now Conquers Scored for flute and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings “Classical music gives me so much freedom to experiment,” composer Carlos Simon stat- ed in a recent interview. “You don’t have to follow the rules in the same way as in other mediums like jazz. I can play with almost an endless number of sound combinations that don’t exist anywhere else, and this allows me to say what I want to say in music.” Growing up in Atlanta, GA, Simon experienced mu- sic as part of worship at the church his father served as pastor. The small congregation lacked a pianist, so 10-year-old Carlos be- gan lessons so that he could play for church. Though his family only allowed gospel music in the home, playing by ear and improvising were Simon’s first tastes of musical freedom. His formal training expanded over time through studies at Morehouse College, Geor- gia State University, and the University of Michigan, where his composition teachers in- cluded Michael Daugherty and Evan Cham- bers. He also participated in the Film Scoring Summer Workshop at New York University and at the Hollywood Music Workshop in Baden, Austria, with well-known Hollywood conductor, orchestrator, and producer Con- rad Pope. As a composition fellow at the 2018 Sundance Institute—held at the historic Sky- walker Ranch—Simon composed An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave , a string quartet honoring the lives of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. He has served on the music faculties of Spelman College, Morehouse Col- lege, and, since 2019, Georgetown University. COVID-19 and social justice issues have dom- inated the first two years of his Georgetown appointment. He became involved in the Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation Project, which confronts the “university’s role in the injustice of slavery.” This activism resulted in the composition of Requiem for the Enslaved , whose premiere is anticipated in 2022–23. Si- mon garnered further acclaim as a recipient of the 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence. Simon’s recent orchestral score, Fate Now Conquers , was commissioned by the Phila- delphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who gave the premiere on March 26, 2020. The composer shared the source of his inspi- ration, a quotation in Ludwig van Beethoven’s 1815 notebook taken from the 22nd chapter of the Iliad : But Fate now conquers; I am hers; and yet not she shall share In my renown; that life is left to every noble spirit And that some great deed shall beget that all lives shall inherit. Borrowing the second-movement Allegretto theme from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, which is followed in the original by a stir- ring series of variations, Simon created his own “musical gestures that are representa- tive of the unpredictable ways of fate. Jolting stabs, coupled with an agitated groove with every persona. Frenzied arpeggios in the strings that morph into an ambiguous cloud of free-flowing running passages depicts the uncertainty of life that hovers over us.” JAMES P. JOHNSON (1894–1955) Harlem Symphony Scored for two flutes and piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, tuba, timpani, woodblock, slap-stick, drum set, guitar, and strings (reduced version edited and arranged by Nicholas Hersh) Pioneering African American musician James P. Johnson led a long, multifaceted career as jazz pianist, songwriter, recording artist, and classical composer. Born in New Brunswick, NJ, this youngest of five children of mechanic Williams Johnson and his wife, Carlos Simon Josephine, a maid, grew up listening to an in- triguing assortment of musical styles: Meth- odist hymns, classical piano, popular songs, military bands, vaudeville shows, dance bands, and “ring shouts,” a common form of music and dance in southern and Caribbean slave communities with roots tracing back to West Africa. When the family moved to Jer- sey City in 1902, Johnson first encountered ragtime piano music, heard through open saloon windows, and determined to become a “tickler” himself. Johnson took his first mu- sical gig and earned his first quarter at age 8. The family moved again in 1908, this time to New York City, where the teenager heard some of the hottest jazz pianists, such as Jelly Roll Morton, and learned to play “real” rag- time. The Big Apple also offered Johnson his first opportunities to hear the highest levels of classical music at concerts of the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Dam- rosch. These traditions might seem worlds apart, but Johnson explained how classical music raised the level of ragtime: “The people in New York were used to hearing good piano played in concerts and cafés. The ragtime player had to live up to that standard. They had to get orchestral effects, sound harmo- nies, and all the techniques of European con- cert pianists who were playing their music all over the city. New York ‘ticklers’ developed the orchestral piano—full, round, big, wide- spread chords in tenths, a heavy bass moving against the right hand.” These keyboard techniques soon became hallmarks of Johnson’s unique approach to ragtime. A wide-leaping left hand, adapted from Chopin and other 19th-century pia- nist-composers, earned this style the nick- name “stride” piano. Though not the only stride pianist of the era, Johnson was unques- tionably the most recognizable figure and came to be known as the “Father of Stride.” Living in the artistic hotbed of New York City in the 1920s, the young musician also made a mark as a Tin Pan Alley songwriter and mu- sical theater composer. His two-act Runnin’ Wild opened October 29, 1923, at the New Colonial Theater, a vaudeville on the corner James P. Johnson (1920) RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 1 – JULY 23, 2021 48